Well, there are issues of integrity and ethics. It's a spectrum. On the Criminal Code issue—and I'm not suggesting there's been a criminal offence—I'm saying that the integrity unit in the RCMP should thoroughly examine the issue, and they may very well be examining the issue. I think they indicated they were aware of the matter. These are issues about positive obligations.
If, for example, the Attorney General acting as the lead prosecutor for Canada in this very important role was actually fired from her job because she didn't make a decision that comported with her colleagues or whomever, and I'm not saying this is the case, but if she did get fired, I do not think the obligation is on her to resign. Arguably, a rational person may say you don't have to resign because you're being a prosecutor, but if there's evidence that a prosecutor was fired and there was an attempt to influence or direct her attention to something that didn't have lawful authority, then it does raise the spectre of obstruction of justice, because obstruction of justice requires a fear or favour element.
I think we have to come back to this key piece, which is, when someone is making entreaties to the Attorney General, is the subtext of those entreaties and is it implied in those entreaties that you will lose your job if you do not listen to me? This is why the rule of law issues become not only engaged, but it could potentially be very serious. I hope it isn't, because it affects public confidence, but because it's so serious, we have to look at it from every angle of integrity, including our normative systems that appear in our Criminal Code and our rule of law principles, which I appreciate you're studying today.
One of the critical rule of law principles, and I'm flipping it back, is saying that, if you seek to influence a prosecution, you had better be able to show lawful authority for your action. If your only basis of your lawful authority is a 1951 political convention that really doesn't even comport with our constitutional order in Canada, then I think we should be looking at that very carefully.